“Snapchat Drug” Blamed for Hospitalizations in Darwin, Australia

There’s a new drug floating around the streets of Darwin, Australia, one that’s imprinted with the logo of ephemeral photo sharing and text message app Snapchat.

Of course, the company is not affiliated with the new street drug, which seems to be a pressed ecstasy-based pill. But for some pharmacological adventurers, the ghost logo is either attractive enough or not off-putting enough to put them off ingesting the pink or blue tablets. Some of these thrill-seekers, it seems, are finding themselves in the hospital shortly after ingesting the ecstasy-blended drug.

Pressed ecstasy tablets often contain a mysterious mix of other ingredients, and it’s not unusual for them to have whimsical, meme-ish stamps on them. According to the Daily Telegraph, police cited reports that individuals trying the Snapchat-logo variety became “aggressive and disoriented after ingesting the drug.” A friend of an admitted hospital patient who tried the drug told the press, “If you take it you will die.”

The Daily Dot confirmed that hospitalizations had resulted from drugs bearing the Snapchat logo. It appears as though at least some of the pills stamped with the logo are from a bad batch. In September of last year, rumors spread that a dangerous batch of M.D.M.A.-related drugs were responsible for hospitalizations and deaths in the Northeastern United States. Four young concertgoers across New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston died in a single week. (“Molly,” the buzzword of last year, refers to supposedly pure M.D.M.A., whereas ecstasy tablets often include other stimulants or derivatives.)

Of course, VF Daily is saddened by any injuries resulting from drug use. But there’s a certain tragic poetry involved when folks living in a city named after Charles Darwin, who wrote the foundational text on natural selection after voyaging to the local port, didn’t seem to hesitate before popping a pill emblazoned with the logo for a sexting app.